International project. Media coverage of the Polish EU presidency

Agnieszka STÊPIÑSKA

Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznañ, Poland

International project:

Media coverage of the Polish EU presidency

Effectively conducted, the EU presidency can improve the image of thecountry holding this position. This is particularly true for countries

that are holding the chairmanship of the EU Council for the first time. Dur-ing the six-month period of the presidency the country attracts foreign me-dia attention, not only as a host of numerous meetings and events, but alsoas an actor in charge of defining the major directions of the EU policy.Therefore, that time could be spent on achieving political goals and build-ing an image as an important and effective EU member, as well as an at-tractive country for tourists and entrepreneurs. In many cases, however,internal political events such as elections, political tensions, or controver-sies over domestic issues seem to take over the atmosphere aroundthe country.

The project Media coverage of the Polish EU presidency was designedto analyze how the Polish presidency in the EU Council was coveredand interpreted by news media in Poland and other European countries.Since scholars from other countries were invited to participate in this pro-ject, the comparative analysis was conducted in two areas: (1) the coun-tries’ experience of the EU presidency; (2) the media coverage of thePolish presidency.

Theme (1) requires a broader interdisciplinary perspective to studyhow the presidency builds a country’s position within the EU structuresand how the presidency can be used to create or change a country’s image.First, one should consider the actual concept of the EU presidency and theexpectations towards the country that is holding this position at the time.Then, one may consider such issues as: instruments that can and should beused to create that country’s positive image; events or activities that attractthe media and international audience’s attention; the stumbling blocks,threats and major challenges.

Theme (2) requires the media content analysis (both qualitative andquantitative). The major issues here are: frequency of covering the coun-

try in the media during the period of the EU presidency, dominant framesand perspectives used in the materials, the sources of information pre-sented in the media (journalist, foreign correspondent, news agencies,other media), particular topics (EU-related and non-EU-related), majoractors, as well as opinions expressed in the comments and analyses and thesources of the comments and analyses. By analyzing the media coveragein the country holding the position and in the other countries one may rec-ognize the similarities and differences in attention and perspectives.

Theoretical background

The media seem to be a crucial source of knowledge about other coun-tries for most people, thus they can be expected to have a tremendous im-pact on how we comprehend the world and communicate with people ofdifferent nationalities. Namely, because most people do not have personalknowledge of foreign events, the agenda setting effect of foreign news willloom stronger than that of domestic counterparts (Hargrove, Stempel,2002; Wanta, Golan & Lee, 2004). Moreover, exposure to foreign newshas an impact on attitudes and opinions concerning foreign countries(Semetko, Brzinski, Weaver, Willnat, 1992).

Thus, in contemporary international relations, image politics – that isthe ability to project a prestigious or powerful image – is as vital to a na-tion’s foreign policy arsenal as political, economic and military strength(Gilboa, 2004; Nye, 2004; Ociepka, 2008; 2012). It means that all coun-tries desire high-visibility, positive world images (Manheim, 1994;Kunczik, 2003). For that purpose, governmental public diplomacy in-creasingly resembles corporate public relations strategies or global brand-ing campaigns to attract media attention and influence world publicopinion in order to affect foreign governments, tourism, and corporate in-vestment (Signitzer, Coombs, 1992; Rivenburgh, 2010). One of the strate-gies of media management is hosting an event that may attract mediaattention.

According to the model developed by Manheim (1994), for countrieswith a very low or very high level of visibility and negative image valance,hosting a global media event may not be the best option. But, the cumula-tive events provide an opportunity for gradual image enhancement. In-deed, during the six-month period of the presidency a government canattempt to attract foreign media attention, not only as a host of numerous

72 Agnieszka Stêpiñska SP 3 ’13

meetings and events, but also as an actor in charge, at least calling for cer-tain actions and solutions to the problems the EU might be facing at thattime. In fact, all of a government’s behavior, its decisions, actions, initia-tives or events, may be perceived as particular signals sent to internationalpublic opinion in order to influence the state’s image.

On the other hand, foreign news has already been a topic of researchfor a long time. The early empirical studies from the 1950s (Kayser, 1953)certified the significance of Europe in the media around the world and re-vealed a bias in foreign news coverage. Two decades later, a study con-ducted by Gerbner and Marvanyi (1977) showed, again, a differencebetween the ‘real’ map of the world with the maps (‘the worlds’) of news.The findings of a content analysis of 60 newspapers from nine countriesclearly showed that the “necessarily arbitrary assumption that each regionhas equal chance of newsworthiness” could not be supported. The sameconclusion was drawn from other studies, including the study of Norwe-gian newspapers coverage of the conflicts in Cuba, Congo and Cyprusconducted by J. Galtung and M. Ruge (1965) and the study Foreign Im-

ages, conducted under the supervision of the International Association forMass Communication Research (Sreberny-Mohammadi, 1985).

One main result from the studies mentioned above was that, every-where in the world, foreign news “devoted most attention to events hap-pening within and to actors belonging to its immediate geographicalregion” (Sreberny-Mohammadi, 1984). The concept of regionalism seemsto be supported also by more recent international media content studies.For example, J. Wilke and C. Heimprecht (2010) showed that in five Euro-pean countries included in the project Foreign News on TV (Belgium, Ger-many, Italy, Poland, Portugal, and Switzerland) almost half of the items(49 percent) of foreign news on TV newscasts was devoted to events inEurope, while the numbers in other regions were significantly lower: inAsia one third of the items (32 percent) covered European issues, in SouthAmerica: 23 percent, in the Middle East: 22 percent, and in North Amer-ica: only 17 percent. At the same time, the level of interest in their own re-gion was relatively higher.

In second place, superpowers were covered, thirdly regions with ongo-ing crises. Only afterwards there remained some space (if any) for smallerand less important countries. Therefore, the global-level research on inter-national news flow generally assumes that international news coveragereflects the structure of power among nations. The crafting of media mes-sages, including those focused on international events, however, is also

SP 3 ’13 International project: Media coverage of the Polish EU... 73

subject to local influences. Included are organizational factors, a localcommunity’s power structure and corporate characteristics. These influ-ences are likely to affect not only the type of foreign news that appears inthe media, but also the quality and depth of this coverage.

The classic concept of foreign news value, developed by J. Galtungand M. Ruge (1965), includes twelve factors that influence whether anevent will become a news item: short duration, reference to elite nations,reference to elite persons, surprise, intensity, relevance, negativeness, per-sonification, continuity, importance, obviousness, and complementarycharacter. In general, this theory purports that the economic, social, politi-cal and geographic characteristics of a nation determine the amount ofcoverage one country receives in the press of another.

Subsequent studies have sought to map the features and factors thatrender an event newsworthy. Content-based studies show that variationin the amount of foreign news is correlated with political systems andeconomic development (Chang, Lee, 1992). In particular, accordingto Wu’s (2000) results of a meta-analysis of 55 studies investigating thedeterminants of international news flow (mostly from the 1980s and1990s), among the components embedded in the world structure, onemay distinguish between a few major categories of factors, namely eco-nomic status, political status, technological development, cultural andgeographical proximity. Then come the following factors: GNP per ca-

pita, index of economic development, population or size of nation, cul-tural proximity, former colonial ties, ideological groupings, languagefactor, geographic proximity, elite status, media facilities and equip-ment, communication access and technologies, and international newsservice (Wu, 1998).

Based on the concepts mentioned above, we can make certain assump-tions about the attention paid by news media to events in foreign countries.The amount of news coverage depends on the proximity (or distance) be-tween the countries, on their ethnographic, political or economic relations.We assume that the smaller the distance, the more complex is the pictureof the country in the media (more topics and events covered by the newsmedia). On the contrary, if the distance must be compensated by othernews factors, this might favor a preference for particular topics, includingconflict and violence. Considering the formats of presentation, Europeancountries will be covered prominently in Europe, but the actual amount ofnews coverage will depend on the attributes and roles played by the coun-try within the region.


Numerous media content studies have been conducted within the Eu-ropean context in previous decades. While some of them were devoted toanalyzing the media coverage of major European events, others aimed atstudying the contribution of the press to the Europeanization of the publicsphere. For example, C. de Vreese (2001a, 2001b) examined the newsagenda and the role played by national news organizations in three coun-tries (Great Britain, Denmark and the Netherlands) in covering the Janu-ary 1999 first-step introduction of the euro, the June 1999 Europeanparliamentary elections, and the December 2000 summit in Nice. Thefindings showed that the news coverage of European affairs is cyclical,peaking during the events but hardly visible before and after. Furthermore,news organizations differed not only in terms of attention devoted to theseevents, but also in editorial policy and the degree of effort invested in cov-ering the events.

Among EU-related events, the European parliamentary elections seemto attract regular media attention. Hence, the media coverage of these elec-tions has been a subject of interest for many scholars, including J. Wilkeand C. Reinemann (2007), M. Maier, J. Strömbäck, and L. L. Kaid (2012),and C. de Vreese (2001c). At the same time, much scholarship has exam-ined the media coverage of European referendum campaigns (de Vreese,Semetko 2004a; de Vreese, Boomgaarden 2005). A separate segment ofmedia research within the EU context is devoted to examining the role ofthe media in the process of European integration (de Vreese, Semetko,2002; 2004b; Boomgaarden, Vliegenthart, Schuck, de Vreese, 2010).

Before Poland’s accession to the EU in 2003, several studies were con-ducted on the foreign media coverage of the country. Their findings re-vealed a low visibility and recognition, as well as a rather neutral ornegative image of the country in other European countries (Kolarska-Bo-biñska, 2003; Warchala, 2002; Sikorska, 2000). Namely, in the early2000s, 50–70 percent of respondents in six countries (Austria, France,Germany, Great Britain, Spain, and Sweden) seemed to have no opinionabout Poland at all at that time (Kolarska-Bobiñska, 2003). Among thosewho expressed an opinion, only around 10 percent believed in the exis-tence of a market orientation in the Polish economy, and only one third ofAustrians and Germans perceived the Polish parliamentary system as“similar to the system developed in Western Europe” (Warchala, 2002).Furthermore, findings from media content analysis revealed that Polandwas portrayed in news media mostly as a “peripheral, traditional Catholiccountry with an underdeveloped economy” (Warchala, 2002). In general,


Poland was presented as a country “like other EU Members.” The studiesmentioned above also revealed an inconsistency in the amount of the presscoverage: while news media in Germany paid most attention to Poland inthe late 1990s and early 2000s, in Spain and Sweden the coverage of Po-land was rather limited.

The study

While much scholarship is focused either on short-duration events orlong-term relations between EU institutions (Trenz, 2004), media andpublic opinion and the process of EU integration, less attention is paid toa single country’s performance during the EU presidency. Previous studiesdevoted to this topic were exclusively national in scope (Ekengren, 2004;Quagllia, E. Moxon-Browne, 2006). This study provides an original con-tribution to the research on media coverage of EU-related events by col-lecting data from seven countries. The Polish EU presidency could beperceived as a case study in the examination of foreign media coverage ofa country holding the leading position within the EU Council. In particu-lar, the study provides an opportunity to analyze an image of a country thatis holding this position for the very first time. Due to the explorative natureof the study, content analysis addressed the following major researchquestions:RQ1: How many news items published in the news media during the pe-

riod of the Polish EU presidency actually referred to that event?

The project provided an opportunity to check how many items in thenews media outside Poland were devoted to Poland and how many of themwere inspired by the topic of the presidency. In other words, we aimed atrecognizing the actual, not just potential, power of the presidency in at-tracting media attention.RQ2: What topics were covered by the news media?

As the studies on agenda-setting show, by focusing attention on partic-ular events and topics, the media can influence the public perception of theobject, in this case – a country (McCombs, 2006; Wanta, Golan & Lee,2004; Wanta, Mikusova, 2010). Besides investigating items related to thepresidency, we examined all the items about Poland published in the pe-riod of six months of hosting this position. This allowed us to identify thepicture of the country that was drawn by the foreign media in comparisonto the image of the presidency in the Polish media.


RQ3: How was Poland introduced and portrayed in the items?

One of the variables in the codebook was designed to identify the mainrole in which Poland was presented in news items relating to the Polish EUpresidency. We assumed that Poland might have been introduced either byEU membership (EU member, new EU member, host or venue of theevent) or by historical and geographic features (post-communist country,Central European country).RQ4: What was the dominant attitude towards Poland presented in the

news?

The final variable in the codebook was designed to learn how newsmedia evaluated the way Poland conducted the presidency. This evalua-tion was mainly carried out for opinion articles. For news items it wasonly coded when a clear explicit evaluation was noticed in the respectivearticle.

The study included ten countries: Austria, Belgium, Germany, Greece,Estonia, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain, and Sweden (see Appendixfor the list of participants). The data from Germany was collected and ana-lyzed by the Austrian team. The findings presented in this Special Issue,however, will come from six countries, including Poland. Systematic se-lection of countries is unquestionably crucial for a comparative study.Since we were interested in European countries as units of analysis, wefollowed the principle of including countries from different regions ofEurope.

The call for cooperation was announced among the members of two in-ternational organizations, that is the European Communication Researchand Education Association (ECREA), and the International Communica-tion Association (ICA). Scholars from fifteen countries responded to thecall. During the course of the research process, however, five countrieseventually dropped their participation for financial and logistic reasons.These countries were Great Britain, Ireland, Denmark, Hungary, andSlovakia. Nevertheless, the final selection of countries still included West-ern, Southern, Northern, and Eastern regions of the European Union. Inother words, it was not biased toward any particular region. Moreover, thesample includes countries with a long tradition of EU membership, as wellas relatively new EU members. However, both the number and content ofthe sample of countries may affect the findings, since the most euroskepticcountries, such as Great Britain, are not included in the sample. Takingthis shortcoming into consideration, we will avoid generalizations ofthe findings.


The empirical analysis focused on the Polish EU presidency that startedon July 1, 2011, and ended on December 31, 2011. Thus, we decided togather the data from June 15, 2011 till January 15, 2012 in three six-weekperiods: June 5–July 30, September 1–October 15, December 1–January 15.Due to the fact that not all national teams followed this pattern, the actualnumbers might be confusing. In order to avoid any bias we use percent-ages as a method of presenting the findings. Journalistic materials (newsitems, comments, reports, editorials, etc.) published in these periods wereselected for the study by using Poland as a keyword. Next, within the col-lected items, a sub-category of the sample was created by using EU presi-

dency as a keyword this time. As a result, we got two kinds of stories:(1) related to Poland (in general), and (2) related directly to the topic of Po-land holding the position at the EU Council.

The choice of media organizations was based on the following pattern:(1) each team was expected to analyze the content of at least one or two

national daily newspapers, one popular/tabloid newspaper and oneweekly magazine. However, not all national teams followed this pat-tern. For example, in Belgium the sample consisted of only one qualitynewspaper, one popular newspaper and one weekly magazine, while inGreece as many as nine online news organizations were studied, butonly two traditional printed newspapers. Thus, while presenting thefindings we will spread the data into separate lines for different typesof media;

(2) the research team recorded newscasts that are broadcast across the re-spective country: the main newscast of the country’s public servicebroadcasting station and the most popular newscast of a privatelyowned (or commercial) station, based on viewership ratings;

(3) online media were selected based on their popularity measured by thenumber of users.Alongside national media organizations’ coverage, the content of the

international TV news station Euronews was analyzed. Since 1993, whenEuronews was launched, the station has been extending its scope and pro-gram while emphasizing its European character at the same time. Accord-ing to the distribution report published in July 2008 (Euronews, 2008),Euronews was a leading international news channel in Europe with a dailyreach of 6.6 million viewers (2.9 million by satellite and cable and 3.7 mil-lion by terrestrial network) which is more than CNNI (1.7 million) andBBC World (1.2 million). Also, according to the European Media andMarketing Survey (EMS July 2008) on the European markets (20 coun-


tries), Euronews is one of the most popular international TV news chan-nels with a weekly reach of 17.6%, that is more than CNNI (16.7%) andBBC World (12.4%).

On the other hand, Euronews was created as a competitor to CNN, toblock its growing influence on the European television news market. Thisdefensive strategy is still one of the fundamental philosophical guidelinesbehind Euronews that has affected both the format and the content, whichmight be briefly described as ‘reporting world news from a European per-spective’. The station is produced by an operating subsidiary companySOCIEMIE created by a consortium of public service shareholders fromthe European and Mediterranean Area (SECEMIE) and sponsored exten-sively by the European Commission (grants). Considering its features,Euronews may be perceived as an important channel of information aboutEurope and European Union for the international audience. Table 1 pres-ents the sample.

Table 1Sample

CountryMedia

organizationsPeriod of analysis

Items about

Poland

(total number)

Items about

Poland EU

Presidency

(%)

1 2 3 4 5

Austria Der StandardDie PresseKronenzeitungProfil

15.06– 31.07.201101.09.– 15.10.2011

01.12.2011–15.01.2012

795 7.2

Belgium De MorgenDe StandaardHet Laatste NieuwsHet NieuwsbladKnackDe TijdHet Belang van LimburgGazet van Antwerpen

15.06.2011–17.01.2012 735 1.6

Estonia delfi.eeepl.eepostimees.eeerr.ee

15.06.2011–15.01.2012 1099 3.5

Germany Frankfurter AllgemeineZeitungSüddeutsche ZeitungBildDer Spiegel

15.06–31.07.201101.09–15.10.201101.12.2011–15.01.2012

1353 5.5


1 2 3 4 5

Greece Online media:

ert.grskai.graixmi.grmadata.grnewsit.grnewsbomb.grOnline newspapers:

tovima.gravgi.greleftherotypia.gr

15.06.2011–30.01.201215.06.2011–15.01.201215.06.2011–15.01.201201.07– 31.12.201101.07– 31.12.201101.07– 31.12.2011

15.06.2011–30.01.201215.06.2011–15.01.201215.06.2011–15.01.2012

476 16.7

Weekly newspapers:

Kiriakatiki EleftherotipiaTo Vima

15.06.2011–18.12.201115.06.2011–15.01.2012

78 23.6

Television:

SKAI TelevisionNET

15.06.2011–15.01.201215.06.2011–30.01.2012

14 42.9

Poland Gazeta WyborczaRzeczpospolitaFaktNasz DziennikPolitykaWprostUwazam rze

15.06–31.07.201101.09–15.10.201101.12.2011–15.01.2012

767*

Portugal Diario de NoticasPublicoCorreiro de ManhaVisao

January–June 2011July–December 2011

134 26.0

Romania Newspapers:

Jurnalul National Ad-evarulRomania LiberaLibertateaRevista 22

1.06.2011 – 15.01.2012 1668 15.7

Online:

HotnewsZiare.comEuractiv

1047 36.2

Spain El Pais 15.06–31.12.2012 51 41.2

Euronews 30.03.2011–30.01.2012 71 22.0

* In the case of the Polish sample only items related to the Polish EU presidency were coded.

The first stage in preparing for the content analysis was the develop-ment of the codebook. The codebook was prepared in English, the com-mon language used by all the participants in the project. The final draft of


the codebook was distributed to all the participating researchers and addi-tional comments and suggestions were solicited. The final version wasconfirmed during a seminar that took place in Poznañ on March 22–24,2012. The codebook included sixteen variables, including the date of pub-lication, news media, genres, front page position of the item, size of theitem, visual elements, source of information, author of opinion, one domi-nant topic area and particular topics (up to three), strategies of domestica-tion, roles of Poland and attitude towards Poland. Each team was in chargeof collecting and training the coders. The number of coders varied fromone in Estonia to six in Poland. Reliability among the coders was estab-lished as a precondition for going ahead with the actual coding ofthe items.

The comparative research started at the beginning of 2012, althoughthe process of collecting the data started in some countries as soon as onJuly 1, 2011. The preliminary results of the analysis were available inspring 2012 and presented during a seminar in March 2012. The out-comes of the project were also presented during a special session of theCongress of Political Scientists in Poznañ, Poland that took place onSeptember 19–21, 2012.

The host institution for the project was the Faculty of Political Scienceand Journalism at the University of Adam Mickiewicz in Poznañ, Poland.The project is funded by the Polish National Science Centre (grantno. N N116 614440).

The following papers presented in the Special Issue include findingsfrom a quantitative analysis conducted by national research teams. Thepapers are presented in alphabetical order, based on the names of the coun-tries (Austria, Belgium, Germany, Greece, Poland, and Romania). Sincethere were three separate research teams from Greece (studying the con-tent of different media organizations), as many as three papers includetheir results. Finally, in order to achieve a more complete picture of Polishmedia coverage, one paper is devoted to a qualitative content analysis.

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Appendix

PARTICIPANTS OF THE PROJECT

Austria/Germany

Romy Wöhlert, Austrian Academy of Sciences, Social Sciences ResearchCenter, Vienna, Austria

Belgium

Daniël Biltereyst, Centre for Cinema and Media Studies, Ghent Univer-sity, Belgium

Stijn Joye, Centre for Cinema and Media Studies, Ghent University, BelgiumKhaël Velders, Centre for Cinema and Media Studies, Ghent University,

BelgiumThibault Bonte, Centre for Cinema and Media Studies, Ghent University,

BelgiumEveline Delcart, Centre for Cinema and Media Studies, Ghent University,

Belgium


Greece

Dora Papadopoulou, University of Central GreeceKaterina Serafeim, Aristotle University of ThessalonikiAnastasia Deligiaouri, Western Macedonia, Kastoria, GreeceMartha Katsiola, Western Macedonia, Kastoria, Greece

Estonia

Andres Jõesaar, University of Tartu, Estonia

Poland

Agnieszka Stêpiñska, Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznañ, PolandSzymon Ossowski, Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznañ, PolandMa³gorzata Ko³odziejczak, Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznañ, Po-

landEwa Jurga-Wosik, Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznañ, PolandBart³omiej Secler, Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznañ, PolandJacek Wyszyñski, Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznañ, PolandMagdalena Boniec, Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznañ, Poland

Portugal

Rui Novais, CECS-University of Minho, University of Porto, Portugal,University of Liverpool UK

Christina Ivanova, University of Porto, PortugalAureliana Gomes, University of Porto, PortugalAna Carvalho, University of Porto, Portugal

Romania

Valentina Marinescu, University of Bucharest, RomaniaMadalina Balasescu, University of Bucharest, Romania

Spain

Miguel Vicente-Mariño, University of Valladolid, SpainAdolfo Carratalá, Universitat de València, Spain

Sweden

Andreas Widholm, Department of Journalism, Media and Communica-tion (JMK), Stockholm University, Sweden
